In many cases clock generators are required in data processing and produce individual successive pulses which can be used to store, interrogate and pass on information or instructions for example. In the case of digital to analogue converters, in many cases there are certain values, for example those of electrical magnitudes, which are stored digitally in shift registers and are converted with the aid of an integrated element connected to the shift register into analogue values. Clock generators ensure that the content of the shift register can be altered, fed out and kept in continuous circulation.
Clock generators generating clock pulses of constant frequency are usually used in data processing. A digital to analogue converter is described in German Patent Specification No. 2348831, which contains a shift register in which the digital value of a magnitude is stored. The shift register content circulates continuously through a data loop and can be altered by a logic unit inserted into the data loop. In this known digital to analogue converter, a DC voltage is derived from an integrating element connected to the shift register, said DC voltage being directly proportional to the number of logical "1" instructions in the shift register. Since the shift clock timing pulses have a constant frequency the divisibility of the magnitude which can be derived by the integrator depends only on the length of the shift register and the number of binary instructions which are to be housed in the shift register in this known digital to analogue converter. In a shift register having n equivalent stages, n different digital values can be accommodated. The resolution of the digitally detected magnitude which is output in analogue form is therefore 1/n.